My Five-Act Cards:The Edit Suite Shortcut to Structure
- Zoe Davis
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
When you’re deep in rushes, structure can feel like something you’ll “figure out later” - until later arrives and you’re staring at a timeline that’s technically assembled but emotionally flat.
This is the five-act framework I return to when shaping documentary: simple enough to remember, specific enough to guide real decisions. I’m John Yorke trained, and I’ve taught this approach while tutoring MA editing students at the National Film and Television School (NFTS) in the UK - because it helps filmmakers talk about story with clarity and speed.
These five cards live on the wall of my edit suite. I use them as a shared language with directors and producers. You can break the rules - you often should - but most great stories still travel through the same terrain. The timecodes are only a rough guide, and they’ll shift depending on the film you're making.
Act One - The Setup
The job of Act One is to orient us, then move us.
Show the normal world and the main characters
Show what’s missing / what hurts / what’s unfair
Set the big question: What happened? Can we prove it? Can we fix it?
Give us a clear goal the film will chase
End with a turning point that forces the story to begin (we must go)
Edit check: If you paused at the end of Act One, would someone be able to tell you (in one sentence) what the film is now going to do?
Act Two - The Complications
Now the journey starts properly — and each step forward creates a new problem.
The investigation/journey starts properly
Each step forward creates a new problem
Introduce the forces against the goal (people, systems, silence, denial, time)
Raise stakes and urgency: why this matters now
End with a bigger door opening: the story is larger/deeper than we thought
Edit check: Does Act Two feel like progress? Even when things go wrong, are we learning something new each sequence?
Act Three -The Cost
Act Three is where the film starts charging interest.
Show the true price of the story (emotional, physical, social, moral)
The central question becomes personal: What does this do to people?
Contradictions and complexity deepen (no easy villains/answers)
The plan starts to wobble; progress is messy
End with the moment of truth: we understand what must be confronted to finish
Edit check: If your film is starting to feel “samey,” Act Three often needs a recalibration: more cost, more personal consequence, more complexity.
Act Four - The Crisis
Everything tightens. Attempts fail or backfire. The truth/goal may never land.
Time pressure, resistance, risk, consequences
Attempts to resolve things fail or backfire
The worst point: it feels like the truth/goal may never land
A final decision is made: the story commits to its last move
End with the leap into the ending (final confrontation / reveal / action)
Edit check: Act Four is where you earn the ending. If your climax feels soft, you usually haven’t tightened the vise enough here.
Act Five - The Resolution
Deliver the central payoff: the clearest truth you can reach.
Deliver the clearest truth you can reach
Show what changes because of it (people, world, viewer)
Make meaning: what we now understand that we didn’t before
Leave the audience with the final emotional release (and the aftershock)
Close the circle: return to the opening question, answered or transformed
Edit check: Can the audience feel the shift? Not just “information learned,” but a change in meaning, perspective, or emotional state.
How this maps to Freytag’s Pyramid
Freytag’s Pyramid is the classic dramatic arc: Exposition → Rising Action → Climax → Falling Action → Resolution/Denouement.
In documentary, I like to think of it like this:
Act One = Exposition (world, characters, wound, question, goal, turning point)
Act Two = Rising Action (momentum + obstacles + stakes)
Act Three = The pressure point (cost, complexity, “moment of truth”)
Act Four = Peak tension / crisis (often where the “climax” lives emotionally)
Act Five = Falling Action → Resolution/Denouement (payoff, meaning, aftershock)
Structure isn’t just where information goes - it’s how pressure increases, breaks, and releases. When your cut is drifting, this pyramid helps you ask: Are we rising? Are we peaking? Are we releasing?
How I actually use these cards in the edit suite
A 15-minute five-act diagnostic
So you’re heading towards RC1. You’ve done the discovery work, stress-tested your strongest scenes, and you’ve got a pretty clear five-act map on the wall by now. But sometimes, even with all that in place, the cut still feels muddy.
When that happens, I’m usually not looking for more scenes - I’m looking for clearer decisions. These are a few things I check when a rough cut isn’t quite landing, and what tends to unlock a cleaner structure.
Drop five markers on your timeline where you think the act breaks roughly are. (Don’t overthink the timecodes, just pick a first pass.)
Write one sentence per act in plain English:
Act 1: What is the question and what are we going after?
Act 2: What’s the plan and what gets in the way?
Act 3: What does it cost, and what truth deepens the story?
Act 4: What’s the crisis point where it feels like we might not get there?
Act 5: What lands, and what does it mean now?
Circle the first act you can’t summarise. That’s your problem act. Not “the whole film”. That act.
Do one targeted fix, not ten random tweaks:
If Act 1 is weak: sharpen the big question and make the turning point hit earlier.
If Act 2 is weak: make sure each sequence creates a new problem or a new complication.
If Act 3 is weak: stop adding information and show the cost. Make it personal. Make it consequential.
If Act 4 is weak: tighten the vise. Let attempts fail or backfire. Earn the ending.
If Act 5 is weak: clarify what changes. Not just what we learned, but what we now understand.
If you can’t write those five sentences, the cut is asking you for structure, not polish.
A quick map from common doc problems to the act that fixes them
When someone says “something’s not working”, it’s usually one of these:
“It’s interesting, but it’s not grabbing me.”
Often Act 1. The question is vague, or the turning point is soft. Give us a clear engine: what are we trying to do, and why now?
“The middle sags.”
Usually Act 2 or Act 3. Either the obstacles are not escalating (Act 2), or we’re repeating information instead of paying the emotional price (Act 3).
“We keep saying the same thing.”
That’s Act 3 asking for depth. Replace repetition with complexity: contradiction, consequence, cost, perspective shift.
“The ending doesn’t land.”
That’s normally Act 4. If the crisis is not tight enough, the resolution feels unearned. Strengthen Act 4 and Act 5 will suddenly work.
“It feels like we’re just collecting scenes.”
Act 2 needs clearer cause and effect. Each sequence should change the situation. If nothing changes, you’re stacking, not building.
Ultimately, these cards aren’t here to make documentary feel formulaic - they’re here to give you a shared language when you’re deep in the cut and everyone’s tired. When a film starts to drift, I’ll literally stand up, look at the wall, and ask: what act are we in, and what job isn’t getting done yet? More often than not, the answer tells you exactly what to do next.
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